Lovely Letter. (Lucy Christopher "Stolen" FanFiction) SLOW UPDATES

Chapter 10

I hadn't seen you in weeks. School continued, pieces of my life slotting themselves back into place, as if your presence had only been a brief, catastrophic interruption. I drove by the shelter a few times after our last... meeting, not wanting to linger but not wanting to leave, resulting in an awkward gas-break-gas lurching of my car. We didn't run into each other again at the cafe, and after a while, I stopped going, sticking closer and closer to campus. I wondered if you were an apparition– a figment of my overactive imagination. That maybe you were still in prison and I had finally snapped and started vividly hallucinating. Hayley quashed that theory.

"I haven't seen your man recently," she said, as we walked to the dining hall. The statement caught me off guard. She hadn't brought you up since you all but ran from her room. She didn't pry, like she'd promised; like I'd asked her to. But you were like tar, bubbling and caustic in the back of my throat, demanding to be freed. I wanted her to interrogate me, in that typical Hayley way, to pass the secret of you off to someone else. I bit my tongue.

"He's...busy," I muttered, trying to brush off the inquiry and hoping Hayley didn't catch me in my lie. I didn't know if you were busy– at this point, I didn't even know if you were still in the Netherlands; if you were still on the continent.

"With what?" Hayley asked, and I immediately knew that she knew that I had no idea where you were or what you were doing. I chanced a peek at her face but she was staring straight ahead, scarf billowing out behind her, eyes dead set on the building before us. I sighed, my breath turning to vapor in the cold air.

"...I don't know if I want to see him," I said, and it was true. I wanted to, and I didn't– no, I knew that I shouldn't and I'd grown remarkably good at denying myself the things that I wanted.

"You do," Hayley quipped, so certain that I froze mid-step and turned to face her. She quickly realized I'd stopped walking and looked at me over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised in impatience.

"Excuse me?" I asked, overly defensive even to my own ears. She couldn't be sure about something like that–

"You've practically been comatose since he left, Gemma, and I know your 'deep thought' face and I've seen it enough in these past few weeks to be genuinely concerned," Hayley said, backtracking to stand before me.

"I–"

"You want to see him again, and there's something stopping you– I know pining when I see it, and I'm well aware that we've only known each other for a year, but you're as easy to read as '123 and the ABC's'," Hayley continued, completely cutting off any argument I might have made. I stayed quiet regardless. "There's obviously something super complicated going on between you two, and I said that I wouldn't pry, and maybe it's none of my business, but you need to make up your damn mind. Either you're going to see him, or you're not. You can't keep yourself in this limbo."

I blinked, struggling for words, and Hayley waited...and waited...and waited. After a while her features softened, shoulders drooping as she gave me a lazy smile. "Come on, we're going to be late to class. You don't have to make a concrete decision right this moment, but do it soon, Gemma. Not for his sake or mine– but for yours, alright? But we've got Hemingway to examine, so let's go," Hayley urged, looping her arm through mine and pulling me forward.

"You're an extraordinary friend," I said, awestruck, feet finally receiving the signal to move after stumbling the first few paces.

"I know," Hayley quipped, shrugging. She rolled her eyes for emphasis. I laughed harder than I have in years.